Get Gift Cards at a Discount

I recently found a very cool site that lets you purchase gift cards for major retailers at a discount. Cardpool is legitimate. You only save about 2.5% on the major retailers, but that's still less than what you would have originally paid.

You can get digital or regular gift cards so you can use them two ways. You can use them as gifts (and noone needs to know you got them at a discount) or you can use them as cash yourself. When you have a purchase planned go to Cardpool and buy yourself a gift card.

You've already saved money on your intended purchase.

My next post will show you how to combine some of these sites to increase your discount and maybe even make a little bit of a profit.

The Great Spam Project - A blog all about Spam (the email type, not the edible)
Ghost of a Writer - My Personal Blog
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Make Money - SendEarnings.com update #4

It's been a few months since I put sendearnings.com up here and I thought I would do an account update for all of you.

I admit that you won't earn a living off of this, but you can a few dollars. I spend maybe two minutes a week on it. They send me an email that I click on, then when it takes me to their site I do a handful of searches. I only make a few cents a week, but an extra $30 in my pocket every year or two is still nice to have.

I am only up to $6.92 which means I have earned less than a $1 since April, but like I said, I'm not planning to get rich from this. I just want a little bit of extra cash.

If you click on one of these banners you get a $5 head start.

 

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Ghost of a Writer - My Personal Blog
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Nelves by Joni

My last several posts have been on saving and making money, something we all need to do, so I thought it was time that I flipped back over to the re-purposing/recycling part of my blog.

I want to introduce you to Nelves, The Nature Loving Elves by my friend Joni. She started making these a short while ago as a way to try and get an income and they have taken off.

Nelves Nature Loving Elves! Nelves help Mother Nature look her best! Hand made and no two are exactly the same.

Nelves are fun
They laugh, they play
They take care of nature in a really great way!
They talk to the trees, the bears and the bees.
They make flowers grow and help rivers flow
They take care of the fish and the birds
The ocean and the forest
The mountains and deserts
The parks and fields

They live in the tree in the middle of a field
In the coral in the ocean
In the park and the city
They can’t be seen but they are there
Helping nature happily

Don’t think they are rude
They don’t mean to intrude
But they can’t help but stop in your garden
To give an encouraging word to the things that you grow
Just wanted you to know

They are here now to ask for your help
You can help in so many ways
Little things really, but they pile up in a hurry.
Pick up the garbage, the can and the wrapper.
Throw out that garbage! Recycle that box!
Reduce, reuse and recycle all that you can!

One last thing they ask and it’s not hard at all
Plant a seed, plant a garden of veggies or flowers
Plant a tree for the future
Help them grow
The Nelves say thank you!

To get your very own Nelve contact Joni

Phone	(920) 252-9072
Email	Nelvesbyjoni@gmail.com

Be sure to check out my other blogs;
The Great Spam Project - A blog all about Spam (the email type, not the edible)
Ghost of a Writer - My Personal Blog
Killer Teacup - My Online Portfolio
 

Make Money: Zerys.com

As I said in an earlier blog post you can make some money by writing, the problem is knowing where to start.

If you want to write and make some money fairly quickly then I suggest you head over to zerys.com. You make a fortune, but, if you can write, then you can pull in some money. Don't expect to start writing instantly. You need to fill out their application and submit a writing sample.

An editor at zerys will review your sample and give you a rating. This rating gives you your initial standing at zerys. Once you've been approved you log in, fill out your profile and start looking at jobs available on the board.

If your initial rating is low then you will probably start out with articles that only pay .7 to 1.4 cents per word, but it's a start, and once you up your rating you can choose higher paying jobs. Your rating increases with your quality and is judged by the clients.

This is a good place to get a feel for what people want written and a great place to return to when your budget is running a little short at the end of the month.

Be sure to check out my other blogs;
The Great Spam Project - A blog all about Spam (the email type, not the edible)
Ghost of a Writer - My Personal Blog
Killer Teacup - My Online Portfolio

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Money Saving Tip #10

A great way to save money on your cable bill is to not have one. Cable is expensive and is there really anything on it that you want to watch?

I'll admit that there are a few shows that I watch regularly, but there are legal ways you can still watch them and it will cost you a fraction of cable.

Check out part 3 of the Digital Landing Money Saving Articles:

Alternatives to Cable TV

Be sure to check out my other blogs;
The Great Spam Project - A blog all about Spam (the email type, not the edible)
Ghost of a Writer - My Personal Blog
Killer Teacup - My Online Portfolio

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Money Saving Tip #9

Cable and Internet providers always seem to be raising their rates, there are ways you can fight  them. Check out Part 2 of Digital Landings Money Saving Articles:

Fight Rate Increases

Be sure to check out my other blogs;
The Great Spam Project - A blog all about Spam (the email type, not the edible)
Ghost of a Writer - My Personal Blog
Killer Teacup - My Online Portfolio

 

Money Saving Tip #8

Times are tough and you needs to save money, but you don't want to remove every luxury in your life. This is part 1 of a 5 part series on how to save money. The first step is:

Lowering your Cable Bill

NPD Online Research

There are a lot of survey sites out there, but most of them send you the wringer to get any form of payment. There are a few sites that I participate it, I won't say that they pay great but I do get the occasional free product, or $5 cheque from them.

NPD Online Research is a site I have used for a while.You get entered in their monthly drawing for $1000 with every completed survey, plus you earn points you can enter into drawings for various prizes. Occasionally they have specialized surveys that pay you cash or send you products to test. I just finished a week long survey on food for points, sweepstakes entries and a $25 gift card.

Yes, that is my referral link, but it doesn't really get me anything except an entry in a quarterly drawing. Their referral program is not much to write home about.

Make Money Writing

If you are the type of person that reads some of the news articles on Yahoo and flinches, then you are probably aware of some of the basic rules of grammar and punctuation. It also means that you know how to use spell check and maybe even how to do some research to verify facts. It that is the case then one way for you to make money is by writing.

Start off with a basic blog so you can build your skills and your portfolio then apply to a few writing sites like Helium.com and zerys.com. These places let you write for money, frequently they are small 'fluff' type articles, but they still provide cash and cash is good. I've been writing for a few years now and have advanced beyond those sites, but I still occasionally return to them when I need to supplement my income.

Once you get into it you can stick your name on the articles and you not only get paid for writing the articles, but you also get paid for traffic generated to the articles.

Check out a few of my earlier articles and I will admit that they aren't spectacular, but they are decent and had earned me some money;

Which Satellite TV provider is right for you: Dish Network or DirecTV?

Dish Hopper: Is it as great as they say?

What is a Reverse Phone Lookup?

Setting up a Home Network

4G CONFUSION: What is 4G?

Reuse cardboard instead of Landscaping Cloth

Aged mulch of coarse home compost Category:Compost (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Last week I told you about using plastic bags as a landscaping cloth.

There is a better alternative that will save you money and in the end is better for the environment and your garden.

It's commonly referred to as the lasagna method. Cover the ground with carboard, preferably the single layer stuff like a cereal box then cover the cardboard with 2 or 3 inches coarse organic mulch such as wood chips or bark. Layers of newspaper will also work. This will last about a year. To continue, simply add another layer of cardboard and another 2" coarse mulch. The organic materials will gradually decompose and enrich the soil while feeding your plants. A good mulch will let water percolate down, slowly decompose to improve the soil, and prevent weeds from sprouting.

The point of mulch is to prevent light from reaching the soil -- light activates the weed growth. That's why you lay a solid mass of paper or cardboardover the soil. Bark and wood chips are slow to decompose, thus lasting for about a year. Shredded dry leaves will usually decompose in 6 to 9 months.

The occasional wind-blown seed will take root on top of the mulch but young weeds are easy to pull up.

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Re-Use Old Grocery Bags #2

Mulch Ado About Nothing (Photo credit: t0msk)

I am not a fan of landscaping cloth, but does occasionally have some uses. We have very invasive deep root weeds that like to crop up everywhere, so I use it one some of my smaller vegetable beds.

Landscaping cloth is black plastic that you put underneath mulch and garden beds to try and keep weeds from sprouting up. It typically costs about $0.50 per square foot, which can add up if doing a large bed and if you are only doing a small bed you end up buying way more fabric than what you needed.

I've been making some new raised vegetable beds and instead of putting down landscaping cloth I put down plastic bags. I found some large bags from Target and JC Penney and I slit them open then I laid them down in the bottom of the beds and put the dirt over top of them. They will serve the same purpose by effectively acting as a barrier, they will also be a lot easier to pick up in five or ten years because roots won't weave their way into them like it does with the fabric.

Next week I will tell you about a more environmentally friendly option

Be sure to check out my other blogs;
The Great Spam Project - A blog all about Spam (the email type, not the edible)
Ghost of a Writer - My Personal Blog
Killer Teacup - My Online Portfolio

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Paid to Blog - Don't do these sites

Well it has been over a week and I am pretty sure that those websites on getting paid to blog are scams.

I got their automated responses on signing up, but no further emails after that and I have checked my spam folders. The only one that actually responded to me was blogdistributor.com which rejected me stating that my blog was not in English and I wasn't in a country that spoke English as a primary language.

Thank you for your interest in submitting your blog to Blog Distributor. Unfortunately, we can only accept blogs that are from bloggers that live in countries where English is the primary language. The reason that we do this is that we have found that there are subtleties in English, that are important to our clients, that are not noticeable to bloggers that are from countries where English is not the primary language. Therefore, we cannot accept any of your blogs. Thank you for your time. 

I guess this means that Spanish is now the official language of the USA?


I guess these will be the first three listed on my 'avoid them' page.

The Great Spam Project - A blog all about Spam (the email type, not the edible)
Ghost of a Writer - My Personal Blog
Killer Teacup - My Online Portfolio

Paid to Blog?

I am not sure whether these sites work or not, but today I am signing up for a few different sites that claim to pay for blogging, I've done some research and I'm not seeing anything too bad about them, so I thought I would give them a shot and see what happens.

So far the ones I have signed up for are;
http://www.blogsvertise.com/
http://www.bloggingads.com
http://www.blogdistributor.com

I guess we will wait to see if they actually pay off.


The Great Spam Project - A blog all about Spam (the email type, not the edible)
Ghost of a Writer - My Personal Blog
Killer Teacup - My Online Portfolio

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Swagbucks.com - Definitely a Money Maker

 

I signed up on on March 10th, and told you about it on the 18th.  I then did a followup post on April 15th, well I got confirmation on Saturday and spent my new $10 Home Depot Gift Card on the Home Depot website. I am picking up my gardening stuff today.

I also had enough points to cash in for another $10 gift card yesterday. So at this rate, I would estimate $10 every two weeks, with little effort. It looks like an easy $500 a year extra just by following along with this nice little program. Not a bad deal at all.

This is added to my list of definite keeps. You can make money here, with very little effort.and I'm going to keep using them. You can either work off of their website or use a simple toolbar (Which I chose to do) The toolbar is easy to remove.

You earn earn by watching videos, websurfing and randomly finding codes or playing games. So far it's looking good, I will try to post an update in a month or so. In the meantime, click one of the links to sign up.

 

The Great Spam Project - A blog all about Spam (the email type, not the edible)
Ghost of a Writer - My Personal Blog
Killer Teacup - My Online Portfolio

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Blog of the Month - April

Well it's that time again where I highlight a blog I've been reading for a while.

This months blog is

On Growbox Hill

I'm not even sure when I started reading them, or where I picked them up from, but I was surprised when I found out that I actually knew the person writing it. It's someone that I have known for years. Not a good close friend, but one of the few I would name friend. There are not many people I call friend, a friend is one who you can trust with your life and that of your family, and I am not a trusting person.

Their description on their blog:

Our trials and tribulations and hopefully glories of moving from the big city to the boonies, and becoming self sufficient. We are currently trying a lot of old world methods and new tec to do this with. Here's some wisdoms we follow... Reduce, reuse, recycle. Waste not, want not. Work smarter, not harder. Thanks for stopping by Growbox Hill and seeing what we are up to!

I don't think they even put down half of what they go through, and I know right now they are going nuts preparing for a wedding. I wish them the best now and in the future.

Be sure to check them out.

On Growbox Hill

 

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Make Money - Swagbucks.com

 

 I just signed up on on March 10th, but I already made $10. I cashed in 1000 points on 4/8/13 and my order is currently pending for a $10 home depot e-gift card. The only big problem with this site is that most of the cash outs are e-cards.

I plan to use mine for some gardening supplies, I know what I want, so I will just order it online when I get the card and pick it up at the local home depot, so no shipping. Ordering my stuff online from them also means that I don't need to hunt it up myself, they will do it.

I suppose that I could save up for one of the big dollar items, but I haven't really seen any big items I need, my husband would love the TV, but we don't need it. The gardening supplies, I need.

I promise to give an update as soon as I actually receive the information and spend the money, as they claim it takes up to 14 days to receive.

This is added to my list of definites. You can make money here, with very little effort.and I'm going to keep using them. You can either work off of their website or use a simple toolbar (Which I chose to do) The toolbar is easy to remove.

You earn earn by watching videos, weburfing and randomly finding codes or playing games. So far it's looking good, I will try to post an update in a month or so. In the meantime, click one of the links to sign up.

 

The Great Spam Project - A blog all about Spam (the email type, not the edible)
Ghost of a Writer - My Personal Blog
Killer Teacup - My Online Portfolio

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Make Money - Sendearnings.com update #3 - Make Money

Sendearnings.com is a legitimate site.
 My last update on March 22nd I had requested a cheque, well I got it and here is the proof

It has been cashed and cleared, without a problem.



I am now in their 'Gold' level of earning which means that I should be earning more money from them from here on out.I am currently just over $6, lets see how quickly it progresses from here.

I'm certain that if someone actually put effort into it then they would already have entered the gold level.

If you click on one of these banners you get a $5 head start.







The Great Spam Project - A blog all about Spam (the email type, not the edible)
Ghost of a Writer - My Personal Blog
Killer Teacup - My Online Portfolio

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